Dr. Stephen M. Krason

Chair of the Department of Humanities and Catholic Social Thought and Political Science Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies

Brief Bio

Dr. Stephen M. Krason,Professor and Director of the Political Science Program, earned his J.D. and political science M.A. and Ph.D. at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He also holds an M.A. in theology-religious education from Gannon University. He teaches in both the University’s Political Science and Legal Studies Programs. In 1997, he was the recipient of the University’s “Campus Leadership and Teaching Award.” He joined the Franciscan University faculty in 1986, after serving for three years as Eastern Director of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

He is admitted to the bars of Massachusetts, Nebraska, the District of Columbia, and certain federal courts including the U.S. Supreme Court. He was co-founder (in 1992) of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and since that time has served as its President and Chairman of the Board of Directors. As President, he also serves as Publisher of its scholarly journal The Catholic Social Science Review. He also serves as Director of the Society’s online/tutorial M.Th. program in Catholic Social Thought.

He has authored Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution; Liberalism, Conservatism, and Catholicism; Preserving a Good Political Order and a Democratic Republic; and The Public Order and the Sacred Order (whose revised edition Library Journal in 2009 called “an important contribution to Catholic social thought”), and edited or co-edited Parental Rights: The Contemporary Assault on Traditional Liberties; The Recovery of American Education;Catholic Makers of America; We Hold These Truths and More; Defending the Family: A Sourcebook; and the two-volume Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy. He also authored a short monograph entitled The International Pro-Abortion Rights Litigation Strategy: An Anti-Democratic Secret Plan to Force Legalized Abortion on the World’s Governments, as part of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute’s “White Paper Series.” His latest book, The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic, is due to be published in the summer of 2012.

He also has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and book reviews in such journals and publications as The Catholic Social Science Review,The Social Justice Review, The Journal of Catholic Legal Studies, Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, Ethics and Medics, The Review of Metaphysics, Catalyst, The Wanderer, and The Washington Times. He is also a contributor to both American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia and the online version of The New Catholic Encyclopedia (2nd edn.) He also writes a monthly online column entitled “Neither Left nor Right but Catholic,” which comments on current public questions in light of Catholic social teaching.

He has been listed in Who’s Who in the Midwest. For several years, he was a consultant to the Pope John XXIII Medical-Moral Research and Education Center (now the National Catholic Bioethics Center), and has served as Coordinator of the University’s Human Life Studies Academic Minor Program. He helped draw up both the University’s Human Life Studies and the Humanities and Catholic Culture Programs.

He is on the Board of Directors of Parental rights.org and the International Solidarity and Human Rights Institute. He also serves on the Boards of Advisors of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and of the Catholic Education Resource Center. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He has drafted or co-drafted and served as counsel-of-record for amicus curiae briefs inTroxel v. Granville and Camreta v. Greene/Alford v. Greene, major parental rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He has also spoken at continuing legal education programs for lawyers. He has received research grants from Franciscan University, the Earhart Foundation, the Wilbur Foundation, and the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal/Educational Reviewer. During the 2008-09 academic year, he was a visiting fellow at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, New Jersey.

He teaches courses in a number of fields in political science: American politics and government, political philosophy, American constitutional law, and international politics. He also teaches jurisprudence in the legal studies area. He has written and published in many subject areas including: abortion and human life issues, Catholic social teaching, the principles of the American Founding and American political thought, American constitutional law, education, false child abuse allegations, free speech and censorship, liberalism and conservatism, church-state questions, international politics, and American Catholic political history. Choosing the Right College, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s noted college guide, referred to Dr. Krason as being “renowned as a conservative scholar of the U.S. founding and the Constitution.” Dr. Krason is also a member of the James Madison Society, a group of distinguished scholars affiliated with the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

Dr. Stephen M. Krason - The Founding Fathers & Religion

Dr. Stephen M. Krason, Director of the Political Science Program at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Associate Director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life, and President of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, reads a reflection about the attitudes of the American Founders towards religion.

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